Larval Ecology - Linking Dispersal, Recruitment and Population Dynamics

I study the ways that larval dispersal interacts with (1) smaller scale settlement and recruitment behavior and (2) larger scale population dynamics and connectivity. Studying such complex phenomena involving biological, physical and chemical oceanography over a range of spatial scales requires interdisciplinary collaboration, and datasets that span a range of spatial and temporal scales. As a JSPS postdoctoral fellow, in collaboration with Dr. Takashi Noda’s community ecology group at Hokkaido University in Sapporo Japan, I studied rocky shore barnacle recruitment. The broad spatial and temporal scale of the field program allowed me to test the relative influence of physical and biological factors on how recruitment translates to changes in adult populations1. I also examined how small scale patterns of barnacle recruitment change over across tidal levels2,3.

1 Munroe, D.M., Noda, T. 2010. Physical and Biological Factors Contributing to Changes in the Relative Importance of Recruitment to Population Dynamics. Marine Ecology Progress Series 412: 151-162.

Rocky intertidal sampling – sunrise at low tide in Donan, Northern Japan.

2 Munroe, D.M, and T. Noda. 2009. Spatial pattern of rocky intertidal barnacle recruitment: comparison over multiple tidal levels and years. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 89(2): 345-353.

3 Munroe, D.M., Noda, T., and Ikeda, T. 2010. Shore Level Changes in Barnacle ( Chthamalus dalli ) Recruitment Patterns Relative to Rock Surface Topography. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 392: 188-192.